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On Friday morning, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy provided no evidence to back up his claim of election fraud in California while giving a misleading press conference lamenting how badly Republicans lost in the 2018 midterm elections.

During a press conference from a Republican retreat in Baltimore, McCarthy began his discussion about California voting laws by lying about California voting laws.

McCarthy correctly stated that many people in California vote by mail. Voters who mail in their ballot must sign the envelopes. But McCarthy gives a wildly misleading statement about new election laws in the state.

“In California, they changed the election law,” McCarthy said. “When it went in to the election office, your ballot didn’t count yet,” he added, noting election officials check the signature against a signature on file to ensure they match.

“They took that all away. No longer do you have to sign it, and people can come to your door and pick your ballot up, whether it’s filled out or not.”

That’s not true. In September 2018, Gov. Brown signed the Every Vote Counts Act into law. This law “provides voters an opportunity to correct or verify signature mismatches on their vote-by-mail ballots,” according to the governor’s office. Rather than having ballots thrown away if signatures are missing or don’t match exactly, election officials are required to contact voters and provide an opportunity for them to address the issue.

“For many voters, signatures may change over time or disabilities may make it difficult to sign the ballot properly,” Alex Padilla, the Secretary of State, said at the time.

McCarthy then launched into a conspiracy theory, insinuating California Democrats somehow engaged in election fraud when seven of California’s 14 Republican House members lost their seats in 2018.

“Even in a case like [former Rep.] David Valadao, where the day after the election he was ahead by six percentage points. Three weeks later, he’d lost by less than 900 votes.” Voters fired Valadao and chose to have T.J. Cox represent them instead.

McCarthy also insinuated something was amiss in another California race where Republican nominee Young Kim lost to Democrat Rep. Gil Cisneros.

“Not only did [Kim] win on Election Day, she comes in and starts new member orientation. We find a few weeks later that yes, it changed,” he said.

Again, McCarthy is insinuating some sort of malfeasance rather than election officials simply following the law and counting all the ballots from every voter. His remarks mirror similarly false allegations of election fraud by former Rep. Mimi Walters (R-CA), former Speaker Paul Ryan, and Donald Trump.

In California, residents who vote by mail are allowed to drop their ballot in the mail up to (and including) Election Day. As a result, many ballots are not and can not be counted until several days or even weeks after Election Day. McCarthy, who represents a district in California, is well aware of this fact.

Yet by bringing up preliminary vote totals before all voters had a chance to be heard, he seems to want to silence Californians who chose to vote by mail in the final days of the 2018 election. He gives no evidence that any type of election fraud took place, and California officials have not identified any sort of widespread fraud.

In the 2018 elections, there was one area where massive election fraud took place — and it was Republican operatives in North Carolina who allegedly collected ballots that had not been filled in and filled them in for the Republican candidate. The fraud was so pervasive that the North Carolina Board of Elections refused to certify the results and then called for a do-over election.

McCarthy provided no such evidence while lamenting the losses of Republicans in California. Instead, he gave false information about California voting laws and seemed to support suppressing the will of voters who opted to mail in their ballots rather than go to a polling location on Election Day.

Rather than just accept the fact that voters rejected half of California’s Republican delegation in 2018, McCarthy chose to spread wild conspiracy theories instead.

Allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used a blind spot in campaign finance laws to undercut a candidate from their own party this year — and their fingerprints remained hidden until the primary was already over.

Super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited sums of money in elections, are supposed to regularly disclose their funders. But in the case of Mountain Families PAC, Republicans managed to spend $1.3 million against Don Blankenship, a mustachioed former coal baron who was a wild-card candidate for a must-win West Virginia Senate seat, in May without revealing who was supplying the cash.

The move worked like this: Start a new super PAC after a deadline for reporting donors and expenses, then raise and spend money before the next report is due. Timed right, a super PAC might get a month or more undercover before being required to reveal its donors. And if a super PAC launches right before the election, voters won’t know who’s funding it until after they go to the polls.

The strategy — which is legal — is proving increasingly popular among Democrats and Republicans. The amount of super PAC spending during the 2016 congressional primaries in which the first donor disclosure occurred after the primary election totaled $9 million. That figure increased to more than $15.6 million during the 2018 congressional primaries and special elections.

Backers of Mountain Families PAC didn’t respond to a request for comment. It is one of 63 super PACs this election cycle that have managed to spend money to influence races and postpone telling voters who funded them, according to an analysis by Politico and ProPublica of Federal Election Commission data.

Voters bear much of the cost when they head to the polls without information on who funded a PAC that tried to sway their votes, said Meredith McGehee, executive director at the nonpartisan watchdog group Issue One.

“The whole idea behind disclosure is that one of the factors that voters can, and understandably should, take into account in judging the message is who the messenger is,” McGehee said.

In total, super PACs have spent at least $21.9 million this cycle in 78 congressional races before disclosing who donated that money — $15.7 million of it during primary races. In many cases, that disclosure came after voters had gone to the polls.

Super PACs were created after the Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision ruled that people and corporations had the right to spend unlimited amounts of money on independent expenditures such as funding ads or mailers, but that they couldn’t hide that spending from the public.

But while they can’t keep donors secret forever, super PACs are increasingly figuring out methods of temporarily masking donor identities that are either legal or fall into gray areas that rarely attract regulators’ attention.

One tactic is the one Mountain Families PAC used, which is likely to be replicated for the general election. A new super PAC that starts between Oct. 18 and Nov. 6 could spend money right before Election Day without having to disclose its donors until after the midterm results are tallied. (Among the 11 super PACs that together have spent at least $5.8 million since the primaries, all but one disclosed their donors on Oct. 15, when third-quarter FEC filings were due.)

Another involves going into debt to pay for advertising and other campaign-related activities, and fundraising later to pay off those debts. A super PAC that does this would not have to disclose donors until well after the money is spent.

In the case of Mountain Families PAC, Blankenship was increasingly popular among the state’s anti-Washington set. So D.C. Republicans behind the PAC avoided disclosing they were behind ads attacking Blankenship — “Isn’t there enough toxic sludge in Washington?” asked one of them — until after the primary.

Here are more examples of PACs that have delayed disclosing their donors this cycle — and how they did it:

As Republican Martha McSally battled two opponents in the Arizona Senate primary, a super PAC called Red and Gold spent $1.7 million attacking McSally, airing television ads that said McSally had supported an “age tax” on older people’s health insurance. But shortly after filing its initial paperwork with the FEC, Red and Gold notified the commission it was going to file on a monthly basis, which meant its first disclosure wasn’t due until Sept. 20, three weeks after the primary election.

When Red and Gold finally disclosed its funders, it was revealed that Senate Majority PAC, which is aligned with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, was the main funder of Red and Gold and had meddled in the primary in an attempt to hurt McSally’s chances of victory and boost a weaker Republican. Chris Hayden, spokesman for Senate Majority PAC, said that “Senate Majority PAC and Red and Gold have followed the FEC reporting schedule and follow the law governing super PACs.”

During the week leading up to a seven-way Democratic primary in Illinois in March, a super PAC called SunshinePAC blitzed the battleground 6th Congressional District with $130,000 in mailers and phone calls. Because it started spending money so late in the race, SunshinePAC didn’t have to reveal its donors before the primary.

But nearly a month after the election, SunshinePAC revealed its lone funder: Tom Casten, the father of primary contender Sean Casten — raising questions about whether the super PAC was really independent from the campaign. By then, Sean Casten had eked out a victory in the primary by 2,177 votes.

Tom Casten said in an interview that “there was no effort or conversation about reporting in the delayed form” when he gave to SunshinePAC, and that “I certainly didn’t ask for it.” Greg Bales, campaign manager for Casten for Congress, said in an email that “as with any outside group, there was no coordination between Sean or the campaign and that group on their spending or disclosure practices.” SunshinePAC did not respond to a request for comment.

A super PAC called Me Too Ohio, which was registered on Sept. 8, disclosed $27,004 as debt and no donors in its first filing with the FEC on Oct. 15. Me Too Ohio is registered to an address in Arlington, Virginia. It has spent money on ads and a website that resurfaced allegations against Sen. Sherrod Brown stemming from his divorce in the 1980s.

The committee filed a report disclosing $220,000 in contributions on Oct. 24 and another reporting the remaining $425,000 it raised on Dec. 6.

Another thing to look forward to is that several of the worst Republicans in Congress will finally, finally, be out of office.

As preparations continue for the new Congress, we wanted to wish an especially un-fond farewell to these six terrible Republican lawmakers:

Paul Ryan

Speaker Paul Ryan’s tenure as leader of the Republican Party is likely one of the most colossal failures in congressional history. The far-right Freedom Caucus fringe ran roughshod over Ryan, who repeatedly proved himself too weak a leader to corral his caucus around significant pieces of legislation.

While the House passed a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, it never made it out of the Senate — and ultimately helped doom the re-election chances of dozens of House Republicans who were swept out of office in the midterms.

Voters were furious that the GOP even tried to push a bill that would have left more than 20 million people without access to health insurance, and that would have decimated protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions.

Ryan did manage to pass a deficit-busting tax scam, which handed Wall Street banks record profits but did almost nothing for regular families. Ryan made himself a laughingstock for weeks after he tried to brag about a secretary who would receive a measly extra $1.50 per week.

Through it all, Ryan never had the backbone to stand up to Trump’s childish antics or blatant racism. When Pelosi takes back over as Speaker, Ryan’s disastrous congressional career will finally, thankfully, be over.

Darrell Issa

Before coming to Congress, Issa faced allegations that he was involved in an arson plot related to his California business.

Somehow, his time in Congress was worse.

Issa rose to prominence as head of the House Oversight Committee during President Obama’s tenure — and wasted millions of taxpayer dollars using this powerful position to chase phony scandals, including false allegations that the IRS targeted conservative groups.

His antics and irresponsible bloviating were too much even for his own party, which proceeded to set up a separate committee to look into the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi — which took jurisdiction on the issue away from Issa, and which Issa was not happy about.

For much of 2017, protesters gathered regularly outside Issa’s local California office to call attention to his terrible votes on issues like health care. Rather than meet with his own constituents, Issa once actually fled to the roof of the building.

And rather than face an electorate likely to fire him, Issa opted to announce his retirement in January 2018. And his seat was one of the seven that Republicans lost in California — a fitting end to his embarrassing congressional career.

Dana Rohrabacher

In 30 years in Congress, Rohrabacher managed to get a total of three pieces of legislation passed into law.

He was useless to his constituents — but he did manage to earn himself the nickname of “Putin’s favorite congressman” because he was so overly friendly to Russia.

Rohrabacher relentlessly defended Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, even if it meant calling the men and women who work for U.S. intelligence agencies liars.

Rohrabacher also embraced Trump and parroted Trump’s anti-immigrant racism. He even advocated discrimination against LGBTQ individuals during his last election.

Incapable of losing with class, Rohrabacher blamed his loss to Democrat Harley Rouda on “bolshevik billionaires.”

Rohrabacher’s fellow California Republican and soon-to-be Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy once said he thought two U.S. politicians were on Putin’s payroll: Rohrabacher and Trump.

Maybe Putin can save a few rubles now that Rohrabacher isn’t returning to Congress.

Trey Gowdy

There are bad people, and there are bad members of Congress. Trey Gowdy is both.

Gowdy has been one of the most feckless and ineffective members of Congress this country has ever seen. He was a waste of space even by his own admission, telling Vice, “I don’t have a lot to show for the last seven years.”

Gowdy’s time as chair of the House Oversight Committee was a series of missteps and bungled hearings.

His one claim to fame is wasting more than two years and $8 million in taxpayer funds on a failed quest to blame Hillary Clinton for the tragic deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

The fiasco concluded soon after Clinton’s epic 11-hour testimony, during which she made Gowdy and other Republicans on the panel look like fools.

Gowdy, who says he is retiring to go back to being an attorney, is an embarrassment to his home state of South Carolina, and Congress will be a better place the further he is from it.

Jeff Flake

Few people are leaving Congress with less of their integrity intact than Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Flake was widely mocked as the leader of the Furrowed Brow Caucus: Republicans in Congress who feign concern over Trump’s reprehensible words and deeds, but still wholeheartedly back the Trump agenda. Even after Flake decided not to run for re-election, he never took meaningful action to stop Trump or Trumpism.

Flake, who claimed to be moved by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s story of being assaulted by Kavanaugh in high school and by the stories of other survivors, hemmed and hawed over Kavanaugh’s nomination. He even tried to make it look like he was doing something by demanding an extremely limited FBI “investigation” into the matter.

But in the end, Flake shrugged off survivors and gave his full support to Kavanaugh — helping Republicans put their second accused sexual predator on the Supreme Court, 27 years after Clarence Thomas.

Dean Heller

Sen. Dean Heller was relentlessly mocked over the course of the 2018 campaign as a spineless Trump lackey — mostly because he was, in fact, a spineless Trump lackey.

Heller viciously betrayed Nevadans on health care, and they punished him for that betrayal in November by replacing him with Democrat Jacky Rosen.

At first, Heller publicly opposed the GOP scheme to rip health care away from millions of families and jack up health care costs for individuals with pre-existing conditions.

But Heller eventually kowtowed to the will of Trump, turning his back on voters and supporting the GOP’s awful plan.

Heller hasn’t announced his post-election plans. His moral flexibility should open plenty of unsavory doors for him — but hopefully his next job won’t include the power to make life-or-death decisions for millions of Americans.

On Friday, the Washington Postreported that incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has confirmed Congress will not seat Mark Harris, the GOP candidate for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.

“Given the now well-documented election fraud that took place in NC-09, Democrats would object to any attempt by Harris to be seated on January 3,” said Hoyer in a statement. “In this instance, the integrity of our democratic process outweighs concerns about the seat being vacant at the start of the new Congress.”

The election in North Carolina’s 9th District is now the subject of a criminal investigation, as affidavits and testimony revealed that a man hired by the Harris campaign, local strategist Leslie McCrae Dowless, Jr., sent paid ballot harvesters to the homes of absentee ballot voters — including elderly people of color — and illegally delivered the ballots to the campaign. More than 1,000 ballots may have been destroyed, in a race where Harris beat his Democratic opponent Dan McCready by just 905 votes. The alleged fraud took place in Bladen and Robeson counties, where Harris won an extremely high percent of absentee ballots despite Democratic voters leading in ballot requests.

This news comes just as the North Carolina Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement, which refused to certify the election results in the district due to irregularities, is officially dissolved to comply with a court order finding the GOP’s prior attempts to restructure it unlawful. Without the board, which had the authority to call a new election, what happens next for the 9th District is unclear.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper recently vetoed a GOP-backed bill that would revert the elections board to its previous configuration, on the grounds that the bill also contained a provision crippling state campaign finance law. He has stated he intends to appoint an interim elections board.

The North Carolina Republican Party, though initially suggesting they were open to holding a new election, are now demanding that Harris be seated in Congress, with executive director Dallas Woodhouse claiming the election board “failed in their duty,” and asserting with no evidence that “Harris got more legal votes.”

About The National Memo

The National Memo is a political newsletter and website that combines the spirit of investigative journalism with new technology and ideas. We cover campaigns, elections, the White House, Congress, and the world with a fresh outlook. Our own journalism — as well as our selections of the smartest stories available every day — reflects a clear and strong perspective, without the kind of propaganda, ultra-partisanship and overwrought ideology that burden so much of our political discourse.